This paper analyzes the effects of nonatmospheric consumption externalities on optimal commodity taxation and on the social cost and optimal levels of public good provision. A negative consumption externality, by lowering the social cost of public good provision, may require the second-best...

This paper derives necessary and sufficient conditions under which positional preferences do not induce inter-temporal distortions. When labor supply is exogenous, positional preferences for consumption have been shown to be non-distortionary for a class of models. However, it has not been...

Most studies of the optimal provision of public goods or the excess burden from taxation assume that individual utility is independent of other individuals' consumption. This paper investigates public good provision and excess burden in a model that allows for interdependence in consumption in...

This paper investigates household decisions, and optimal taxation in an overlapping generations model in which individual utility depends on a weighted average of consumption of ones peers --- a ``keeping up with the Joneses'' consumption externality. In contrast to representative agent...